Crack an egg into the frying pan...

Last Friday, Jellyfish Review was kind enough to publish my flash “A Whole Breakfast”—a charming story of near-miss incest. Near-miss! I write happy stories, okay? Happy.

The piece was rejected a whole heck of a lot—10 times, to be exact—due in part to its repetitive refrain. But I had faith in my little weirdo story, and I had a feeling Jellyfish Review might appreciate its strangeness and give it a home. Glad my instincts were correct.

The story was inspired by this photo of Poly Styrene, lead singer of the 70s punk band X-Ray Spex:

My friends Tim, Leta, Laura, and I used to exchange photo prompts and write flash stories based on them; I know this is one of the prompts I sent, but I have no idea how I came across the photo in the first place.

Also, I’m fairly certain I’m the only one who completed this prompt. And it paid off—years and years later.

Other writing news: my agent read the latest draft of my novel, and she liked it! I owe her a round of edits at the end of the month, so I’m busy busy busy. And the other day, I had the opportunity to Skype into my friend Wendy’s fiction class to discuss my story “Baby Dolls” with her students. This was a tremendous honor for me. It’s often difficult to feel like a “real writer,” whatever that means. But I did feel like a writer that day. Thank you, Wendy!